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30 What are you doing,
    you who have been plundered?
Why do you dress up in beautiful clothing
    and put on gold jewelry?
Why do you brighten your eyes with mascara?
    Your primping will do you no good!
The allies who were your lovers
    despise you and seek to kill you.

31 I hear a cry, like that of a woman in labor,
    the groans of a woman giving birth to her first child.
It is beautiful Jerusalem[a]
    gasping for breath and crying out,
    “Help! I’m being murdered!”

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Footnotes

  1. 4:31 Hebrew the daughter of Zion.

30 And you, O devastated one, (A)what will you do?
Although you dress in scarlet,
Although you decorate yourself with ornaments of gold,
Although you (B)enlarge your eyes with paint,
In vain you make yourself beautiful.
Your [a](C)lovers despise you;
They seek your life.
31 For I heard a sound as of a woman in labor pains,
The distress as of one giving birth to her first child,
The sound of the daughter of Zion (D)gasping for breath,
(E)Stretching out her [b]hands, saying,
“Ah, woe is me, for my soul faints before murderers.”

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 4:30 Lit paramours
  2. Jeremiah 4:31 Lit palms

30 What are you doing,(A) you devastated one?
    Why dress yourself in scarlet
    and put on jewels(B) of gold?
Why highlight your eyes with makeup?(C)
    You adorn yourself in vain.
Your lovers(D) despise you;
    they want to kill you.(E)

31 I hear a cry as of a woman in labor,(F)
    a groan as of one bearing her first child—
the cry of Daughter Zion(G) gasping for breath,(H)
    stretching out her hands(I) and saying,
“Alas! I am fainting;
    my life is given over to murderers.”(J)

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